pages of the Hibernian Journal. When professional actresses were engaged to play alongside the amateurs, Daly treated his annuity obligation to Owenson as discharged and Owenson lost the ensuing litigation. Return, and difficulties In January 1793 Saunders's News-Letter was at last able to "congratulate the lovers of the drama, on the return of their two greatest favourites, Mr and Mrs Daly, to that station in the theatric world, which they supported with such superior ability". Of the couple's appearance at the Theatre Royal, it claimed, "Never did any dramatic event accord more with the wishes of the public". Less than a fortnight later the same publication was lauding Richard Daly's performance in Benjamin Hoadly's The Suspicious Husband, and in early February, in reference to the couple's playing Mr and Mrs Oakley in George Colman the Elder's The Jealous Wife, it reported that "Mr and Mrs Daly are peculiarly capital". In 1794 Jones procured a licence authorising dramatic performances on the Fishamble Street premises provided no male actors were paid to perform and admission was limited to membership of the organising group. This element of exclusivity stimulated a demand for membership which left the boxes of the Theatre Royal "quite deserted, it being deemed vulgar to be seen in them". By 1795 the theatre was, according to George Frederick Cooke, "at a low ebb; the performers were ill paid, and the house, scenes and dresses were very mean". In early 1795 Daly's wife (who had last performed in the previous February) was terminally ill. Daly, who was "extravagantly fond" of her, broke down on stage when performing during her illness. She died in April, "endowed with every virtue that could grace the female breast… her death a brilliant example of Christian fortitude". In the same year Frederick Jones applied to the Lord Lieutenant, Earl Camden, for a full patent for staging theatrical entertainment; the application was accompanied by a memorial, signed by many of Dublin's fashionable figures, criticising both Daly's playbills and premises. Ordered to investigate the criticisms, the Irish Attorney-General judged them valid, and Camden intimated to Daly that he proposed to grant Jones a concurrent patent. Retirement Daly declared he would prefer to retire on fair remuneration rather than engage in what he believed would be ruinous competition and, with effect from 12 August 1797, he transferred his theatrical undertaking and the Crow Street premises to Jones in exchange